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I’m sorry but I have to interrupt my normal broadcasting of this blog to bring you a very important newsflash, so just bear with me. It’s a bit of a rant.

Parents are stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Now I didn’t say ALL parents are stupid. But quite a few are. I don’t think that I’m necessarily a smart parent, but I’m smarter than all the stupid stupid stupid parents out there.

Newsflash: If you let your one or two year old behave violently and never discipline them, you’re going to have a three or four year old that behaves violently and is not disciplined. Also major newsflash, when that girl or boy is five or six he or she will be disrespectful and rude and no adult will want to be around that child, probably not even their own parents. What is so sad is that it’s not the children who are to blame for this. No. It is the stupid stupid stupid parents who are to blame.

Another revelation: Our job as parents is to do just that. Parent. Novelty! Our job is not to just have children and let them behave the free spirited self that they are. No. It is to train them, guide them, discipline them so that when they are in preschool they do not act like animals.

I hate preschool and I cannot wait for my last child to graduate from preschool and be done with all the stupid stupid stupid parents’ children who think it’s okay for their three year old to yell ‘no’ at adults and hit their parents, teachers, and fellow classmates (i.e. my kid). But wait, preschool is not where it will end because no doubt these stupid stupid stupid parents’ offspring will go to elementary school where I will have to see and deal with and witness the actions of a now five and six year old who lacks complete respect for authority and the physical welfare of their classmates. Seriously, when does it end?

I hate preschool. I know I said that already. But I do. The age of the children, the politics of the parents, and the meshing of different childrearing techniques or complete lack there of. I know I am not an overly strict and harsh parent, but we have rules. And they are enforced. Period. End of story. Rules that are not so hard to think up, like no hitting, no pushing, no biting, no speaking disrespectful to ANY adult, no yelling. And when these things are done by MY children, which trust me, it happens. Guess what? I do not ignore it, I do not defend it, I do not rationalize that he or she is tired, or he or she is sick. That only does the greatest disservice to your child of their entire life.

Big newsflash: If you think it’s cute for your two year old to play with pretend guns and make shooting noises at other people or animals, they will continue to do that. And it’s not so cute anymore, nor will they grow out of it, at 10 or 12. And that’s maybe why we have handguns being brought to school. Not because of gangmembers and drugs. But because of stupid stupid stupid parents. Yes, this is my philosophy. Stupid stupid stupid parents are raising violent, aggressive, disrespectful children who will turn into violent, aggressive, disrespectful teenageers which will turn into violent, aggressive, disrespectful adults. Genius? No. Just common sense.

I’m sorry to vent like this but all my real life friends have gotten an earful lately, so I thought I would share my glorious pearls with my virtual ones. Not that all 73 of you readers are so interested in this information. But there’s a reason you like to visit this blog. Possibly entertaining. Possibly to mock me. Possibly to see what life is like on the other side of having children. Possibly to see what your life may be like in the future. Possibly to make sure your life is never ever like this. I don’t know. But whatever reason you come I want you to please take one thing away today. Please do not be stupid stupid stupid parents. Because I will call you on it. And if I don’t call you on it I will have to make another post like this one and refer to you as an idiot idiot idiot.

Just wanted to make that clear. Okay. I’m done.

We’ll return to lovely photos of my beautiful children after the weekend.

never hurt anyone. And we got some last weekend. The kids never cease to not be amazed by puddles, the worms that like to crawl slither in and die in those puddles, the nasty sappy flowers that accumulate on the ground near those puddles. And they also love to put rain gear on, unfortunately it’s May and Greta doesn’t own a pair of rain boots, and Sawyer’s have been stashed away for months. But we made do, and it was in the mid 60’s so no one froze. Except Gunnar, refused to let me photograph him in his basketball shorts because he was too cold to go outside.

Sawyer often likes me to tell him stories. Completely fantasy, untrue, interesting stories. But this evening I asked him to tell me a story instead.

Here it goes,

Once upon a time, there was a really nice witch. But she was sad because she wanted friends. Not just any friends, but a Prince friend. And all the friends disappeared. The witch even went to the castle and the Prince disappeared, and so did the King and Queen too. You couldn’t find the friends anywhere. And when the witch went in the castle and looked in all the rooms, no one was there. Even the cook disappeared. But the witch saw there were rats everywhere. In all the rooms of the castle. So she locked the door with a special key. And then she looked at the clock and saw that it was bedtime. So she had to go back to her house as fast as she could so she could go to bed. And so she went to sleep and when she woke up. . . she was still sad. Because her friends didn’t undisappear. Even when she used her really nice magic wand. Her friends didn’t undisappear.

Oh no, Sawyer! What did she do then?

Well she searched in all the castles in all the earth. And still she saw no one. But all of the castles in all the earth were filled with rats! So she had to lock them up with special keys.

That’s gross! Rats? Everywhere?

Yep. In all the rooms. And nothing she could do could bring back the Prince friend. So she went home. And she was sad.

Is that the end? You mean it doesn’t end happy?

Nope. That’s it. That’s the end.

Well, I don’t really like stories that end sad. Can we say she went home and then found the Prince friend somewhere and they lived happily ever after?

No dress or skirt is worthy of Greta’s adoration unless there is major twirl factor. In fact, each and every time I put a dress on her she does a tester twirl. If it is not to her liking we have a major battle on our hands.

Well to her delight, I pulled this dress from the closet, saving it for over 2 years! Tati bought her this dress before she was born, let me tell you, it has major twirl factor. All day long, she twirled. . . and twirled. I managed to snap a few photos. You can see how serious she is about her swaying skirt.

And these are just a sampling of my photos if you can believe it. It was so hard to only pick a few to share. No wonder I log into iPhoto and have over 10,000 photos taken in only the last 2 years.

Okay, as you’re about to see, my day was kind of boring. The kind of day that includes the driving and picking up of children at school, traveling to two grocery stores and still forgetting something important, and making bread. Yes, breadmaking (okay, my facial wasn’t too bad either) was the highlight of my day.

Not the kind of breadmaking that my mother-in-law would be proud of, the woman needs mad props for her homemade cinnamon buns; and if she owned a computer she would be able to read this herself. But the kind of breadmaking that will get me as close to the domesticated Martha Stewart goddess as it gets. You won’t find me kneading or pounding or in an apron, but I would love a bread machine. Yes, my next purchase when my stupid Quicken program stops flashing red signs at me and allows me to make a purchase other than necessities, will be a bread machine.

Alas, what kind of bread machine? Like everything, my research must commence. I am the queen of online research, where to buy, which brand, shipping coupons, warranty, all these things must be taken into consideration. The problem is I have no clue what a bread machine actually does. I am under the impression you throw in some ingredients (all easily found at my local Trader Joe’s), you put them in a machine that has only one button “on” and then you come home to a house filled with a delightful smell and you retrieve your freshly cooked bread and slice it up and your family devours the sandwiches made from this amazing, incredible, delectable food called bread. Could it be this simple?

One minor obstacle is my children don’t eat sandwiches. . . of any kind. No PB&J, grilled cheese, turkey, no meat/bread combo. But that could possibly be because they have yet to try bread made fresh by me.

A few weeks ago, I bought these adorable little frozen rolls of Bavarian bread. I read the instructions, thawed, painted brushed on some butter, let it rise in the sun for 4 hours, and then I squealed with delight and Aaron came running. I was so excited that I just had to poke at the freshly risen ball of dough. Then I learned as my husband yelled to stop, well. . . the dough shouldn’t be touched once it’s risen. Mind you, no where on the instructions did it state this. The gorgeous Bavarian fluffy bread turned into a deflated shaped balloon. I hate to admit, but I was in tears. So tonight was my redemption. I took on the Bavarian dough once more, and prevailed.

This is a reason to have another child, and hope she is a girl. Not a reason that I would have another child, because I already have too many enough. We have one of these hanging in Greta’s room and there is no prettier way to display her hair accessories. There is a giveaway for one of them at Pink With Sparkles. Embarassing, but true, we need a second one because the one we have is full. Overfilling with cuteness, but full nonetheless.